


Any Bets?

by aquandrian



Series: Any Bets? [1]
Category: Holiday (1938)
Genre: Gen, classic Hollywood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-28
Updated: 2007-04-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:38:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquandrian/pseuds/aquandrian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You won't?" <br/>"Can't."<br/>"Caught?"<br/>"Maybe."<br/>"I'll be back for you, Ned."<br/>"I'll be here."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Bets?

January 1939

Johnny and Linda sail for Paris. Ned curls up on the floor of the puppet booth and drinks himself to sleep. He dreams of New York sky scrapers and Eiffel scaffolds merging, knotting and knitting together in sticky steel across a winter grey sky. In his dream, he climbs up and up but the girders are slippery with mouths snapping for his hands and he keeps falling. The mouths are full of teeth like tickertape and each one announces stock changes. Ned keeps climbing, he doesn’t know why.

A week later, the first record arrives. The package is addressed to The Club and is left on his dresser. Ned doesn’t find it until the next afternoon and only then because his hand needs somewhere to brace himself on the way to the bathroom. There is a note tucked into the record sleeve. “My fine bucko, Paris is charming. Come join us. Love, Linda and Johnny.”

Ned plays the record late one night up in the playroom. His blood strums with whisky as he stands by the turntable, glass and cigarette in hand. The room swims slightly and the music spurts dark and strange out of the horn, like hot tar spitting onto the white flowered sofas. He smells burning and it’s the cigarette fallen on Linda’s writing. He watches the note crumble up and turn to ash, thinks of bodies burning on trees of steel.

 

February

Julia gets herself engaged on St Valentine’s Day. No, it didn’t take her long at all. Father makes a speech that hurts Ned’s brain, he’s not nearly drunk enough to withstand so many clichés in one go. When the party is in full swing, he commandeers the elevator and stays there all night, lying on the floor with champagne bottle in one hand and baton in the other. He conducts the Seton Symphony in F Major for three whole movements and barks at anyone who tries the elevator doors.

Father isn’t amused. And Ned finds himself in the office until six most nights. He spends those three extra hours throwing scrunched up balls of pages torn from stock reports at Grandfather’s portrait. The old so and so glares out of the oiled canvas, the Seton chin quivering with outrage. Ned takes to growing a beard.

The second package comes from Italy, addressed in Johnny’s hand. “Ned old man, Italian wine is something else. So are the ladies. I suggest you come sow the proverbial I can’t. Take it easy, son.”

“Aye, aye,” murmurs Ned and toasts the air. The music seeps out of the horn, the same dark voice and dark guitar, it soaks into the curtains and carpet like so much creeping midnight blue. There’s a girl at the office, blonde with deep blue eyes. She watches him come and go, she thinks he doesn’t notice. Sodden old Neddie, no good to anybody. 

He doesn’t need to go to Italy to try any sow. And Father would pop an eyeball if he was seen with a girl from the typing pool.

But this would involve speaking to another human being. And these days, well, what is there to say?

 

March

They see a play at the Shubert. It’s bankers’ night out, all stuffed shirts, glittering gowns and arch voices. Father talks incessantly to Julia and her fiancé because of course he had chosen the egg from the office. The fellow smiles and simpers and calls Ned “sport” which prompts Ned to demonstrate the sport he prefers best. 

It takes five bottles of whisky and two decanters of brandy for him to throw up all over Julia and the egg. He even manages some on Father’s sleeve. This happens well after intermission so they’re forced to sit out the rest of the play in the reeking box, not speaking to each other. Father and Julia are practically rigid with rage. Pleased, Ned begins to focus on the play.

The next day, sick in bed, he wonders if he imagined Linda onstage, tall and slim with long red hair, a goddess of marble and flame.

The third record arrives, postmarked from Spain, the packaging ripped and damaged. There’s no note, perhaps it fell out. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Ned sits in the dark and listens to the record, listens to words of pornographic filth and rhythms of fingers on guitar strings that are no longer so strange, jagged rhythms that he’s beginning to understand. He sits with his hands hanging loose between his legs. He’s unpleasantly sober, every cell feels dried and shrivelled, leached from the days in bed. It hurts to be.

The clock on the mantelpiece strikes midnight.

Today is his birthday.

Twenty-seven.

Ned picks up Leopold and waltzes the giraffe around the playroom, faster and faster, around and around until he stops, suddenly breathless in the dark. His heart feels swollen in his chest, it presses against the bones of his ribs and they hurt so he can’t breathe.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if he died today, died like any old financier with a heart worked too hard? 

No. It wouldn’t.

Mother died of a heart attack mere days after he was born. Even the servants pitied him, at least that made him like them some. Poor little rich kid, motherless and fatherless too because when has that man ever embraced his son?

On the floor, Ned gasps for breath.

Only Linda ever hugged him. Julia was ever daddy’s little girl, always hanging off his hand, clever and bright in ways that Ned could never understand. Only Linda ever put her arms around him and kissed his hair, called him her little lamb, made him yearn for something he hadn’t known.

Mother’s room is kept just as it was and when he was very young, too young to know anything of psychoanalysts, he would creep in under the cover of a silent sleeping house. Her clothes were arrayed careful in the wardrobe, her robe draped over the foot of the bed, and all the little bottles grouped before the covered mirror.

He would unstop them and smell one by one until he found the one he liked best. Light gardenia. It would creep into him and fill up all the empty spaces. Was that what love felt like? 

Then as he grew and Father’s indifference turned to fierce disappointment, the empty space he found was under Mother’s bed. No tears, no wails, no words. He’d curl up in the narrowest of dark and wait. Sooner or later, Linda would find him, coax him out with compassion and promises of protection and the occasional sandwich.

Much later, Ned understood. Mother died of a broken heart.

The record hisses and creaks, the man whines with fingers tripping on strings. And Ned begins to breathe again on the floor of the playroom, his cheek bruised against the hearth, listening to the spaces between the notes. They’re filled with the sound of a heart breaking over and over again.

 

April

The New York World Fair opens with the Seton family in attendance. Father twinkles with self-importance, Julia and the egg preening in his wake. All these suits congratulating themselves, basking in the glory of being the haves and knowing only the haves. It gives him the creeps.

Ned trails after them, he’s been told to come along and hadn’t the energy to protest. They pay him no attention, that’s no great hardship. Between the great pavilions and throngs of riches, he hears music. Pretty glossy trills of orchestra curling out on the crisp spring air, double edged with happiness. Ned drifts towards the sound, deliberately deaf to the occasional greeting or twitter.

At the back of the crowd, he stands and watches. The glittering swoop and cut of bows across strings, the shoot of woodwind and curl of brass, faces focused with concentration, and a pair of hands plying the air. It’s like seeing the playroom all over again, eerily familiar. He feels like a stranger at a family reunion.

Oh wait. That’s how he feels at dinner every night.

Ned smirks and goes in search of a drink. But he comes back, whisky in hand, and watches and listens. The music seems an approximation of bliss, oddly hollow, pretty movements with the right pauses and the right flourishes and all curiously uneven. Ned frowns, sipping absently, and wanders off.

Behind the pavilions, amid the garbage cans and construction debris, he seeks out shade and silence. A nondescript man eyes him for a while and then sidles up. Ned buys a couple of reefers and shares them with the guy. At first they talk. About what it’s like to live on the street. And what it’s like to live on the Avenue. When the world blurs, they don’t talk.

There is no record that month.

 

May

One morning, Ned wakes on his own. This is unusual enough for him to turn over and wonder where Henry is, why he hasn’t had the drapes opened discreetly on him. But the room is dark and the clock shows half past eleven. If he remembers correctly, it’s a weekday. He should have been at the office hours ago.

Puzzled, Ned shuffles out in his dressing gown and finds the house too silent. No Julia, no Father. Downstairs is the distant murmur of voices from the kitchen and Ned pokes his head gingerly in. 

“Mister Ned.”

“What’s happened to everyone? Where’s Henry?”

The cook twists her hands, the maids seem to halt in whatever they’re doing, caught between fear and distress. Henry in his careful butler shape is nowhere to be seen. There’s entirely too much emotion in the air for Ned to take without a glass between him and the world.

“Er, Mister Ned.”

Father had a heart attack while dressing that morning. Henry had found him, Julia had called the family doctor who had ordered him directly to the hospital.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Yes, Mister Ned,” says the cook wretchedly. She looks so much fatter and older than Ned remembers. “Molly will bring your breakfast soon as.”

“Er. Yes, thank you.” Ned goes to close the door and then says “No, a highball will be fine.”

There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to do. He gets dressed for work anyway, but can’t go through the front door. In the living room, he sits at the piano and looks at the space where Linda had stood, her back a lovely vulnerable line. He’s shaking a little. Should he tell her, call and be a woefully inadequate semblance of family boy?

Call where?

His fingers find the keys, shape those notes that pearl out of his heart. The Seton Concerto in F Major. It trickles into the air, his eyes blur on the black and white. Grey heart, grey notes. Ned sways, his head bending, yearning always to disappear into the music but always each note seems to crystallise him even clearer. It’s awful. But he plays on, pulled by the melody shaping bright in the greying air.

Father collapsed on the floor, was there blood when he hit? Did he cry out, did his heart hurt? Did he remember her, how she hurt?

The door opens and closes. A glass and a package are placed carefully on the piano top. “Thank you,” he murmurs, senses the pity as an unwelcome caress. The door opens and closes again. And he plays on, looking at the brown wrapped record. Linda and Johnny making their own melody that must be some hideously aching beautiful song. He could have gone.

“Maybe.”

Maybe. As in never, ever. Tied to what? Father needing him in his own autocratic way, needing him to push around, still trying to shape him into a decent scion. Ned glares at the keys, trying to focus through the wet blur. His head feels full of hurt, his heart sore. Sure, he’s needed.

So much so they forgot to wake him.

He’s still playing when Julia returns in a clatter of heels, her voice metallic as she flings orders at Henry. “There you are,” she says, tossing her handbag on the chair. Ned says nothing, listens to the curve of octave change coming up ahead.

“I suppose you’ve been told.” She’s dragging off her gloves, he can feel the cut of her eyes. Ned inclines his head, hating himself a little for the cowardice, and mumbles “How is he?”

“Oh, fine. Just fine.” Vicious Julia in a temper and maybe he could hear the tears but she’s beginning to annoy him. “Dr Parsons wants to keep him there for a week. Have you been to the office? You haven’t, have you? Well, that’s just fine,” she snarls and whirls. “Oh, never mind, Father’s given me instructions for Julian.”

The egg.

Ned’s hands stumble on the keys. He could protest, Julia isn’t the only one with the Seton temper. But she’s already picked up the phone. “Henry. Have the maids clear out the room immediately, the nurse will be here tomorrow.”

He looks sharply over as she puts down the phone and walks away. He doesn’t say anything but Julia stops at the door, turns coolly on her heel. “Oh yes, I suppose you should know. Father will need a nurse for the next few months. I’m putting her in Linda’s room.”

Ned stands up fast. “Now look here, Julia — ”

Her eyes are very cold blue, like Father.

“What, Neddie? You know she’ll never come back.”

 

June

Summer arrives in a hellish haze. Father seems crippled, too weak to even growl displeasure. The nurse is an evil witch and the household takes to avoiding her as much as possible. Ned spends a good deal of time drunker than usual, sitting on the floor of the playroom with his head leaning back against the gramophone stand, heart lurching in time to the plucked string. Because it is a grand game of musical hide and seek, wending his way into the densest part of the fog, insulated from the prickly resentful world.

Julia screams at him sometimes. That’s all right.

One afternoon at the office, there’s a tap on his door before it opens. Ned lobs one right off Grandfather’s chin, drawls. “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

“Mr. Seton?”

Ned takes his feet off his desk, stands up with some reluctance. “Mr Hobson.”

The fellow wants to ask about Father. It’s an awkward conversation, full of pauses and Ned avoiding eye contact. There’s something entirely too paternal about Hobson, it makes him nervous. 

“And have you heard any word of young Case?”

Case. Sure, Johnny used to work for Hobson. “Not as such,” Ned mumbles, suddenly remembering the silly little bowtie and Johnny’s hair curling forward. 

“He was a good man. Good man,” says Hobson, obviously in a reminiscent mood. Ned eyes him, bracing for the platitudes of regret and ready to be snipe back on Johnny’s behalf. “Could have gone places, that man. Very high places.”

“Indeed,” Ned says coldly.

“Still,” Hobson sighs, “can’t say I blame him. Between you and me, Ned my son, I wish I had thought of it first. At my age, too late, you know.”

Ned stares. A little while later, Hobson leaves and Ned looks up at Grandfather’s portrait. “Turncoats,” he tells him, “everywhere you look. Grand, isn’t it?”

He’s smiling faintly as he leaves the office. The girl with the dark blue eyes smiles back and for a minute, Ned imagines taking her out for dinner and a dance. In the elevator, two old suits discuss the situation in Europe, how very important it is for this great country to protect its own. This severely damages Ned’s good humour.

When he wakes up the next morning after dreams of chasing hellhounds chasing him, he has absolutely no idea how he got home. His knuckles are ripped raw, his jaw bruised and aching. Henry assures him that he fell in the bathroom.

 

July

The sixth is Johnny’s birthday. Ned remembers in a moment of clarity and celebrates by taking Linda’s chenille robe and the tiny musical box into Mother’s room. It’s a way of introducing Johnny to the family, his own little present of welcome. This is where Linda would share her precious three years of memories with him. Sometimes even Julia would come to listen. 

Ned opens up the wardrobe and hangs Linda’s robe up between the tissue silk dresses. It trails long and homely and nubbly to the ground. He remembers the shape of her waist, so impossibly slim and strong. Johnny’s hands would fit perfectly. Ned blinks on a twist of some fierce emotion and closes the wardrobe.

On the floor by the bed, he winds up the musical box and watches the figures twirl slow to the breaking tune. This was Mother’s favourite piece. That’s the smell of her perfume light on the air. Johnny would recognise it from the insides of Linda’s wrists, from the neat glossy curve of her hair against her neck.

The door opens. “Who’s in here?”

Ned barely flinches. “Just me, Father.”

“Oh.” He moves slowly these days, ventures in with the help of the cane. Ned watches him look around, hears the edge to his own voice. “That’s all right, isn’t it?”

Father’s not listening. His expression absent, he lurches over to the covered fireplace. “What? Oh yes. Yes, of course.” And it’s a perverse lewd thing for Ned to see the way his father doesn’t touch the wedding portrait on the mantelpiece. The old strong hand stops just short, fingertips resting on the rim. He peers close and Ned knows what he sees. Mother slim and elegant in her wedding dress with her masses of reddish hair and fine sensitive face, so clearly Linda and Ned’s mother. While Father seemed a younger male version of Julia with his gleaming blond hair and forceful jaw.

Now he draws back, seems almost discomfited as he looks around the room. “Long time, Father?” asks Ned very quietly. He doesn’t get a reply. The musical box tinkles on, piercing the stillness with a painful cheer. Ned watches Father approach, sees how the clear blue eyes look down and fix. Without a word, Ned lifts the musical box up.

And Father says softly, almost to himself, “I gave her that.”

Ned says nothing, can find nothing to say. The tune slows and stops. Leaning heavily on the cane, Father reaches out his free hand and winds the key. Three, four revolutions until the music begins again. His face seems to relax, the blue eye flickers. “I gave that to her when you were born.”

Ned swallows. “Payment for services rendered?”

The blue eye pierces, not cold but with a strange banked heat. “It was her favourite tune,” says Father.

When the door closes behind him, Ned is gripped with the sudden unshakeable hallucination of his father winding up the musical box, playing it over and over again in this empty room.

No record arrives that month.

 

August

Father insists on returning to the office, dismissing the nurse in a blazing row. Ned watches the chaos with some amusement and follows him to work. As it turns out, Julian the egg has made a few colossal errors of judgement and Father delivers another rousing tirade. Ned leans against the wall, thoroughly enjoying the scene, and opens the door for Julian’s humiliated exit.

“Ned, you will shave that thing off immediately! Go now!”

“Yes, Father.”

The blonde with the dark blue eyes is showing off her engagement ring to the other girls in the office. Ned passes, face averted. Some things were never meant to be. Some things are. Linda will never come back, Julia will marry the egg, and Neddie will always be silent and in disgrace.

Out of the office, he wanders towards Times Square. The dreary signs and decrepit buildings seem so bare and harsh in the noon sun, the people all seem torn at the edges, hungry and hollow eyed, vibrating with sullen aggression. Beggars and pimps and prostitutes, every shade of skin dirtier than white, invisibly scarred and depressive. They watch him walk past in his rumpled suit, Ned feels a strange sick thrill. He’s never been here so sober. He has murky whisky fumed memories of clubs and dance halls, fumbling in alleys and paying for lurid sights but that was all part of the elaborate game.

This is good too, the danger, the wild awareness of being watched, of being unsafe. He pays the dull faced man and slips into the darkened cinema. There are a few other shapes in the murkiness and he tries not to notice, sitting in an empty row with his eyes fixed on the images stuttering onscreen. Flesh quivering, wobbling, jerking to the strain and stumble of badly scored badly played music. Ned hunches in his seat, waits for his own flesh to stir.

A few rows up and to one side is the malformed shape of two people locked together. Ned lets his gaze slide, breathes careful and lets his hearing tune in to the caught breath and the smack squeeze slap of flesh on flesh. It’s more imagination than voyeurism and Ned gets so caught up that he fails to notice the body sliding in beside him.

Until a hand falls upon his knee and his whole body flinches, heart leaping into his mouth. A terrifying glimpse of eyes in the dark and Ned jerks out of the seat, is hurrying out of the cinema before he allows himself to think.

A quart of whisky secure in hand, half slipping through his veins, no, it’s not too bad at all. He sees it clear. Linda will never come back, Julia will marry the egg, and Neddie will go to sleep. The haves and the have nots will go on having and the towers will keep on knotting. Lurching along the line of sex shops, Ned smiles at pimp and prostitute alike. Outside a boarded up store, he shares the last of his whisky with a homeless guy who tells him the war will be fought inside a light bulb. Ned agrees.

Mid afternoon, he loses his friend to unconsciousness. A little later, he passes out too. It’s almost night when he wakes up, mildly astonished to find himself still alive. Still his clothes are rifled, all money gone, no watch, no cufflinks, no shoes. And his friend has vanished.

Feeling somewhat vindicated, Ned struggles upright. May as well head for home. Henry might worry. The street lamps begin to come on and Ned notices a dirty old record store still open, a few characters within. Sure, he’ll be the only white person in there but he enters anyway. The black guy behind the counter eyes him warily, Ned ignores him. There isn’t a single record he recognises and he remembers far too late that he has no money at all but still he thumbs through the sleeves, following some unnamed urge. Eventually he finds the records Linda and Johnny sent him, it’s a curiously pleasing sight.

Happy, Ned inclines his head to the counter guy. At the door is a stack of newspapers. No New York Times, these, just some home printed music rag. Entirely for the heck of it, he grabs up a copy and ambles out, heedless of his unprotected feet, reading as he walks between the spots and shadows of street lamp.

It’s a small article tucked away on the back pages. Ned recognises the name and stops short. Not an obituary, a tribute. To a musician who died almost exactly a year ago, poisoned by strychnine in alcohol, dead at the age of twenty-seven.

Ned throws up for the longest time. All his insides splattered and stinking on the sidewalk, his head roaring and full of raging light, full of confusion like hot spitting slashes of tar. This is vindication. He was right. It’s a swell game, a terribly exciting game, of risk and reward. And it keeps going as long as you last. And then there’s nothing to do but lie down and die.

He was right.

When he gets home, there’s a brown wrapped package on his dresser. Ned sits on the side of his bed, shivering violently, and stares at it. That’s how Henry finds him. Coaxed out of his fetid clothes and into a bath, Ned says nothing and waits until Henry leaves before he gets out and pulls on a dressing gown. 

Up in the playroom, he unwraps the record carefully and slides it out of the sleeve. The August night is steamy against the window, the house silent with sleep. He lowers the needle and the record begins to spin.

And there, fallen out of the cardboard sleeve, lying across his bare foot, is the note. “Come for the wedding. We need a best man.” The music begins, trickling forth voice and guitar all new and familiar and dark. Ned looks at the attached train ticket to New Orleans and feels a shiver across his soul.

Any bets?

++++++++++++++++++

 

epilogue

 

“Neddie! You — ”

She stops and stares at him, somewhat awestruck. He grins, it feels too wonderful, and grabs her up in a hug, holds her hard. Gardenia and warm woman Linda flesh. He buries his face in her hair, it feels like home, how she recovers fast and hugs him just as fierce.

“Oh, Neddie, Neddie,” she says and pulls away, “let me look at you. My goodness. Look at you.”

Mischievous, he rubs his hand over the stubble. “That bad, is it?”

“Oh no, it’s lovely!” She colours a little. “I like it. Very dashing.” She pats him on the arm, her eyes glint that irrepressible wicked humour. “Did Father hate it very much?”

“Terribly,” he drawls and she laughs. “Now, off you go. Johnny’s waiting for you around the front. Make sure he doesn’t run off, all right?”

“Right, I better go warn him against us black sheep.”

She baas at him, and they laugh. God, it feels like far too long since they were this happy, this free.

Ned’s grin fades a little as he looks at her standing there, tall and slim all in floaty white, her hair rich long and red down her back. She seems changed, subtly wild and joyful. “You look like Mother,” he says thickly. Linda smiles at him, her blue eyes soft and understanding. “Go, Neddie.”

It’s a tiny little church and he doesn’t know New Orleans enough to even know where they are. It’s midmorning and the air seems already clogged with music and food and strange flowers. The sun is warm and his clothes are thin against his skin, no wools or tweeds here, just the thinness of cream linen and white cotton. No suits, no tuxedos. Still, Ned straightens the open collar of his shirt, wanting to look his best, and enters the small dim church. His eyes adjusting to the gloom, he hears Johnny before he sees him. That ringing joyful yell of his name and suddenly he’s caught up in the same exuberant sort of hug. “Ned old man!”

Flustered and happy, Ned pulls free, quite sure he’s blushing a little. “Hello there, Case.” Johnny arches one quizzical brow. “What, so formal? You’re not at the bank any more, you know.”

“Oh, I know.” Ned grins. “I know, Johnny.”

“That’s better.” A clap on the back and Ned’s ushered up the aisle, talked to like he’s never been away, like it’s only been yesterday since they were all together. Johnny Case was ever like the sun, energising and so freeing it was almost like delirium being near him. 

“Here’s the ring, mind you don’t lose it, she’ll have both our heads if you do.”

Ned finds he can’t stop smiling. The happiness wells up from his ripe heart, seems to fill every empty space, he feels like he glows. It’s damned embarrassing but he’ll be damned if he stops. The ceremony is short, the church fills up with enough people for Ned to realise they’ve formed a secure little society around them. In the front row are the Potters, looking just as giddy as anyone. And he feels a little shy at the hotel party afterwards when he goes up to them to say hello, uncertain if he might even be remembered.

“Of course we remember you,” exclaims Susan Potter.

“Yes, we’re not that aged yet,” says the professor who insists on being called Nick.

“Do,” stammers Ned, annoyed with himself, “do you live here now?”

Their eyes are shrewd on him, sure they know. His tongue feels so thick, his brain heavy. He has to concentrate to speak but it can be done. Two days now without a drink, many more to come.

“No,” Susan tells him, “we’re still incarcerated in the south of France — ”

“Ghastly conditions, just ghastly,” Nick interjects.

“ — but we were summoned for the royal occasion, thank goodness.”

“And we came, bearing only the poorest of gifts.”

“Love, hope, good wishes.”

“And a very fine Beaujolais.”

They keep Ned company for the party, something for which he is cravenly grateful. But then they don’t know anybody else there either. The three of them sit in the deep green garden strung with lanterns, batting off the mosquitoes, and watch Johnny and Linda mingle. Nick asks what Ned will do in New Orleans and, to his own surprise, Ned finds himself admitting “The music here, it, I might … I may try my hand at composing. I used to, you know,” he adds, somehow wanting to impress them, these people who are more real than any other couple he’s ever met.

Nick’s brow crinkles, his tone ironic. “I can’t say I’m much for the crazy jazz thing these cats seem to be into but — ”

“Oh Nick, stop embarrassing yourself.”

“My dear Susan!”

They bicker with such ease and good nature that Ned watches for an endless while, amazed all over again that people could be so comfortable together. This world with its spicy food and exciting music and vibrant people seems so very far from anything he’s ever known. It’s wonderful.

Ned relaxes with his fruit juice cocktail, watches as Johnny and Linda glance at each other across the crowded patio. Johnny drifts over to her, stopping and greeting and chatting on the way, his path doesn’t waver. And Ned sees clear the brush of his hand over the small of her back as he joins the conversation. He says nothing, listens with half a ear to Nick and Susan.

Later, much later, the party is over and they have retired to a tiny apartment on Bourbon Street. Lazy jazz floats into the street, the air is sweet and sticky. Ned leans on the window sill, looking down at the lamps throwing gold on cobblestones and the people passing, so many different shades of skin and clothes. Across are roofs of quaint shapes and above is the clear deep blue sky. Not a tower in sight.

“Drink, Neddie?”

“Yes, please.” He turns at Linda’s voice, leans back on his elbows. Her eyes skim over him as she pours out a glass of tomato juice. “Shall I?” she asks, indicating the nearby bottle of vodka.

Ned shakes his head. “No, thanks, never did like potatoes.”

Her grin is still as infectious as ever. “I remember.”

They sit on the couch together, listen to the sound of Johnny singing in the bath. Ned doesn’t need to ask if they have lived together, it’s none of his business and never was his place to judge. Linda bends her leg under her, long and slender in loose blue shirt and cropped trousers, and asks him about Father and Julia. He tells her, proud at how his voice doesn’t shake. She understands him enough to know what he doesn’t say. 

At some point, Johnny comes out, towelling his hair, and goes to the tiny kitchen for a beer. The smell of him, clean and fresh, mingles with the sweet sticky smell of Linda’s perfume, and Ned shifts in an uneasy sweat. This city, being here with them feels a little strange and perhaps later he’ll run the full gamut of emotions. But right now he looks at the precious shape of Linda’s face and the rumple of her hair and wants very much for everything to be all right.

“Can I ask you something?”

Linda nods slightly, those clear blue eyes watchful. She always did have that quality of unconditional acceptance, did she know how rare and beautiful it was? Ned licks his lips, tries to frame the question just right. “Did you, why? Why did you both send me those records? Why that particular, why him?”

Her eyes slide to a point at his side. Ned knew the moment Johnny came to stand by the couch, the subtle change in the air and the smell of him. Now he glances over and up. The brown eyes are already bright, flicking alert from him to Linda.

“Why, Linda?” repeats Johnny.

She looks at Ned, her expression turning mischievous. “Does it matter? You’re here, aren’t you?”

He stares at her for a long while until she begins to get anxious and Johnny shifts a bit. Here, in New Orleans, with music and spirit and freedom and this dizzying dangerous sense of love. It’s not a game any more but it is grand, it is exciting.

Ned smiles. “Yeah, I’m here. All bets are off.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish it were! Belongs to Philip Barry, totally awesome legend that he is, and Donald Ogden Stewart, ditto, and Sidney Buchman, whoever he is. 
> 
> Originally posted at http://aquandrian.livejournal.com/495812.html
> 
> The musician is Robert Johnson, died August 16 1938, either of strychnine poisoning or pneumonia. The play is actually The Philadelphia Story, I couldn't resist, the timing was preternaturally perfect. And yeah, I inadvertantly stole Dr Parsons from there too. The performance Ned watches at the New York World Fair is Piano Concerto in B Flat (I think) by Arthur Drummond Bliss. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" is Neddie misquoting Dante's The Divine Comedy and me anachronistically appropriating Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho for my own pleasure. The war being fought in a lightbulb I think I sorta stole from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. 
> 
> Continued in Red Hot. Heed the rating and warnings!


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